The present invention relates to the generation of a hypertext database for use on a hypertext platform and, more specifically, to the generation of typed nodes and links in a hypertext database from formatted documents.
In many industries, models are employed to solve complex problem domains, such as designing of a business process, designing products and so forth. The creation of a model includes various elements, other than the work of actually populating the model elements. Much of the group work that occurs in a model-building effort consists of discussion, argument, brainstorming, and other informal communication about the models. This includes conversations about what to place in the model, what issues are raised by the model, what work needs to be done in connection with the model, how does the model relate to other aspects of the project, and so forth.
Currently, most modeling tools do not include support for these activities and, more significantly, do not provide any way of recording, displaying, or maintaining these discussions as part of an overall modeling representation. One significant problem is that modeling and conversation are seen as, and supported as, separate activities requiring separate tools. This has negative implications for development of group understanding of both the models and the problem domain; the communicative ability of both the project team as a whole and the team""s individual members; the storing of rationale for key decisions about model elements, model construction, project management, and design elements; and other areas of a project.
There is a need to provide generally a tool which improves intercommunication between project members. There is also a need to provide a tool which can consolidate such intercommunication and other relevant information into a searchable database, capable of being created and utilized by those with little or no software development experience.
One possible approach to remedy the above problem is to employ the logical infrastructure or associations provided by a hypertext system. One technique in generating a database employed in a hypertext system (hereinafter xe2x80x9chypertext databasexe2x80x9d) involves the user creating data which serve as nodes for each unit of data and setting each link one by one depending on the relationship between the created nodes. Another technique requires that the user creates one datum corresponding to each node and directly manages (e.g., non-automatic) the hypertext creation of the created datum to achieve the division of the datum into nodes and the creation of links between the divided nodes.
However, such hypertext approaches, as described above, do not provide an architecture or infrastructure suitable for facilitating intercommunication between project members. That is, they do not provide the flexibility to consolidate data having a format generated from various sources or application programs, to generate a useful, searchable, logical hypertext representation thereof. More importantly, they do not provide a simple and efficient method to create automatically customized nodes and links, which maintain the attributes and relationships of the original data (e.g., documents). As such, the above hypertext approaches provide an inadequate hypertext representation.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for generating a free-form, multi-dimensional, searchable hypertext database, from non-hypertext data, such as documents, WEB pages, tables, charts, etc.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for generating the above hypertext database without requiring programming skills or excessive administration in the generation and modification of the source document.
It is also an object of the present invention to generate a searchable hypertext database from documents generated by non-hypertext applications such as MS Word(trademark).
Another object of the present invention is to utilize available functions and commands in conventional application programs used to generate source documents to facilitate the generation of a hypertext database.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for generating a hypertext database from source documents generated at various locations and with different application programs.
The present invention is a method and apparatus for generating nodes and link definitions for a hypertext database from at least one source document which includes text and formatted properties that define a logical or semantic structure of the source document or, more specifically the attributes and relationships of the information in the source document. Initially, the source document is segmented according to selected formatted properties. A node is then generated for each segment of the source document. Thereafter, link definitions are created to establish associations between the nodes so as to maintain the logical or semantic structure of the source document defined by the format properties. The nodes and link definitions can be imported to a hypertext database and searched with a hypertext engine.
The present invention provides a method and apparatus that converts a source document into a hypertext format by analyzing the inherent format properties, i.e., format codes, of the source document. Thus, source documents can be generated at various locations using different application programs (e.g., different word processing application programs, spreadsheet application programs, etc.) and be converted and integrated into a single searchable hypertext database. Such an arrangement provides a flexible and useful tool, which is capable of aggregating information from various sources into a logically searchable hypertext database.
The present invention also provides a method and apparatus in which the nodes can be customized with fields that specify specific characteristics of their corresponding segments of the source document. For instance, each node may include a LABEL, CONTENT and NODE TYPE field where the LABEL field contains the content (e.g., text) delimited by length or format codes or key commands, the CONTENT field contains the format codes or key commands and the remaining content (if any) of the corresponding segment of the source document and the NODE TYPE field refers to the style defined by the format codes or key commands and contains information associated with the style and/or levels, e.g., an Issue or a Position. It is important to understand that the information in each field is determined based on the format properties of the corresponding segment. For example, the NODE TYPE field contains the term xe2x80x9cIssuexe2x80x9d if the segment is a heading (i.e., contains heading format code(s)) or the term xe2x80x9cPositionxe2x80x9d if the segment is not a heading.
The present invention further provides a method for creating logical associations (link or link definitions) between the generated customized nodes that retain the logical or hierarchical relationship of the content of the source documents. That is, the customized nodes are linked according to the logical or hierarchical structure defined by the format codes so that a user can search and/or browse the nodes as if the user is reading through the source document. Moreover, the present invention allows the links to be further defined according to a type of the links (xe2x80x9cLink-Typexe2x80x9d), such as xe2x80x9cAboutxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cSpecializesxe2x80x9d. The Link-type identifies a semantic relationship between the content of the linked nodes.
For instance, a link-type such as xe2x80x9cSpecializesxe2x80x9d may generally indicate that the content of a node is a subtopic of the information of another node. A link-type such as xe2x80x9cAboutxe2x80x9d may generally indicate that the content of a node explains the subject matter of another node. Other link-types may be employed depending on the desired search parameters, the relationships or information sought to be identified, and so forth. Such an arrangement allows the relationship between linked nodes to be further defined, thereby providing a logical, searchable hypertext database.
The present invention also provides a method by which a user, such as a team project member, can utilize conventional functions found in application programs (which can generate a source document) to encode a source document with user key commands. User key commands can be predefined or selected text character(s) or symbol(s), or predefined or selected format codes which are used to provide further detail and structure to the source document, particularly for use when the source document is converted to nodes. That is, the information inserted into the nodes are defined by the particular key commands, e.g., the highlighted or bolded content (or a portion thereof) of a segment is copied to the LABEL field with the key commands and remaining content being copied to the CONTENT field. In this way, the already existent functionality of application programs can be used to enhance the creation of nodes and link definitions of a hypertext database. This is a particularly useful tool, since the information from source documents with user key commands can be converted to a more detailed and useful node (with fields) representation of the information.